Michael Swickard
“I had the right to remain silent… but I didn’t have the ability.” Ron “Tater-salad” White
Comedian Ron White has a “You Can’t Fix Stupid” comedy act. In it he drinks scotch, smokes cigars and says potty words amid his great analysis on stupidity. He is right; there is no fixing some kinds of stupidity this side of a mortuary.
My complaint is not about stupidity, which at times is my middle name; rather, it is that our political leaders think Ron White is wrong and they can legislate stupid out of our society. They are being stupid trying to outlaw stupidity.
This week it is no longer legal to drive holding a cell phone to your ear. The Las Cruces City Council said, “There, we fixed stupid.” In reality they meant, “There, we added a pre-tax to stupid driving.” They now tax stupid people before the inevitable accident stupid people always have and then tax them for the accident thus getting twice the taxes from the same stupidity.
It would appear that it is now illegal to hold a turned off cell phone to your ear while you drive. Or, it is illegal to just drive with your hand up to your ear. The police are on a mega revenue blitz so you will get a ticket for those actions just as sure as God made hot green chile.
After a while the city council will require drivers to always keep both hands on the steering wheel – their left hands at ten o’clock and the right hands at two o’clock. Cannot happen? The New Mexico Legislature considered making alcohol interlock devices a requirement on all motor vehicles regardless of if you ever had a DWI. They were thinking that would fix stupid.
Anticipating all possible stupid actions
The core of these laws involves the legitimate role of government in a free society. Is it to anticipate all possible stupid actions and make them illegal? When citizens injure one another the government intercedes, as it should. An offense against one citizen is in effect an offense against every citizen in our country and so we take action. But, when the offense has not happened yet, is that different?
The government attempts to anticipate everything that might distract me and make each one illegal. Does that really work? No. Or, should the task of not being distracted fall directly on my shoulders?
It would seem if the government wanted to improve the driving public it should tighten the requirements for having a driver’s license. There should be intensive driving requirements just like there are with pilots. Driving is a privilege and a social responsibility, not a right.
One thing that could help is having bad drivers lose their license. How inconvenient. Some say we cannot do that because people will just drive anyway. Really? And we cannot think of something to do about them breaking the law? No, that is just a bag of stupid waiting to be poured.
Stupid is all around us. Example: I was in a convenience store. A woman said, “I would like (cough cough) a pack (cough cough) of (cough cough hack wheeze) Cruces Coffin Nails Cigarettes (cough) in the phlegm colored pack.”
No one in line said anything, which was proper, but after she left there was a tittering of laughter. I coughed and said, “No cigarettes for me.” More laughter.
‘Why did this happen to me?’
Now I have enough bad habits for two people so I should not cast stones from my glass house, but I cannot help it. A television program showed bus drivers who knew there were video cameras recording them.
Surprisingly, when their cell phones buzzed they reached for them and subsequently smacked the vehicles in front of them. Their reactions were fascinating. One guy pounded the steering wheel and wailed, “Why did this happen to me?”
Why indeed? There was no one was hurt so the driver stomped off the bus to find out why those stupid cars stopped in front of him but the video out the front of the bus showed quite clearly the traffic light in the intersection was red. He stood around trying to think up a good explanation for why he was texting while driving in heavy traffic with a camera on him. When his supervisor showed up he had not come up with anything.
This television program had a whole hour of stupid bus drivers who knew they were on camera texting and getting in accidents. Go figure. They looked at the road ahead, looked directly at the camera and then whipped out their cell phone and began texting until the crash. Was it illegal for them to text and drive? Yes. Did they know it was illegal? Yes. Did they do it anyway? Yes. What are we going to do to fix stupid?
Giving them a ticket obviously will not change their behavior so what else is there to do to stamp out stupidity in our lifetime? Perhaps we can have a stupidity test before allowing people to drive but that would be profiling and also picking on a significant population of Americans so politicians would be reluctant.
I suspect the text ordinance like the red light cameras are just 21st century tax ploys. I hope these are just taxes rather than our leaders really thinking they can fix stupidity with laws. As Ron White points out, “You can’t fix stupid.”
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.
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